Growing Old is Getting Old
Thoughts on growing up, growing old, and being okay with that
I didn’t accept that I was balding until late last year.
It wasn’t the first time that I had noticed the receding hairline. Ever since I was a child, my hair came to a rounded edge in a strange “U” shape, which left my face framed with higher temples than usual.
My hairline went unnoticed for some time — as I wore my curly black hair first combed down towards my eyes, later straightened to make me feel “whiter,” and then ultimately left to hang limply in front of my face.
Eventually, I grew up — and my hair was swept backwards and slightly to the side. Now, my hairline was available for all the world to see.
And the world did see it.
“I like your hair,” came a usual compliment from a family friend. My jet-black hair had typicaly drawn compliments from well-meaning matriarchs in my life, and so this seemed no different.
But she quickly followed up — “I think a receding hairline looks dignified on a man.”
I brushed it off without much thought.
It’s the “U” shape, I told myself.
It wasn’t until a few harmless jabs from friends and almost a year later that I began to look to my family history.
Which was, in short —
- My biological father — a full head of hair.
- Every other man in my family — George Costanza.
(And nobody wants to be Costanza.)
It’s not the end of the world if I loose a few follicles over the course of my life. I’ll take the hand I was dealt, because — let’s face it — there’s not much of an alternative to that.
But what really sank in last year was living. Or, the fact that I was farther along in life than I wanted to be.
In October, my sister and stepbrother, alongside respective spouses, both welcomed baby boys in their homes. The two cousins were born within four days of each other.
As you can imagine, it was a hell of a week.
I remember walking out of the first hospital on a Sunday, choking back tears of joy and gaining a perspective unlike any I had ever experienced.
But before we had even gotten into the car, my mother asked if we needed to pick anything up for my sister’s C-section the following Wednesday.
I never understood the miracle of life like that week. A week prior, I was a 21 year old — living in a basement, eating frozen dinners and trying to get a freelancing career off the ground.
The next, I held new life in my hands — and was now an uncle to two nephews.
(Although it’s worth noting that the frozen dinners and the basement dwelling never ceased).
Through no choice of my own, I was intertwined permanently into the life stories of two nascent lives.
How strange it is to see a face for the first time and suddenly understand unconditional love. And how terrifying it is to realize that your joy could not compare to how it must feel when that new face is the face of your child.
My actions and choices until what will most likely be my death is a chapter — however small — that will be written in real time by these two boys. They will know me well — as I take my newfound role very seriously — but they will know me as the “adult.”
The old one.
The previous generation.
The past.
As someone who still sees himself as a child in many ways, that thought scares the hell out of me.
I once heard it said that part of staying young is making time for childish things — and part of growing older is learning to talk to yourself.
I was struck when I first heard that — and I’m struck now thinking about it, in a way I will try to explain:
As an introvert, a sole proprietor, and a naturally ruminating person, I talk to myself more than anyone else I know. I can guarantee that. My inner mind has been one my favorite allies and cursed enemies.
I have a knack for taking concepts and developing them in ways that surprises people. It’s what I do for a living, and it’s what I’ve always known. It is one of the few compliments I’ve ever afforded myself.
But there’s a converse to this benefit that I rarely let be shown.
- The abject terror of depersonalizations and anxiety attacks in my college days.
- The crushing voice that brings me insomnia perhaps more often than weekly.
- My constant and sometimes-pyrrhic battle with my self-worth.
From this perspective, hair loss is more than aesthetic. Becoming an uncle is a bittersweet moment.
I used to exist singularly. Or at least, I thought I did.
I fetishized my nomadic tendencies somewhat and would pride myself on self-sufficiency.
But I can’t do that anymore.
Part of last year’s epiphany included the realization that I exist only partially for myself. I am intricately woven in the stories of others. I am a principal member of the cast and an extra all the same.
And, in my own life, I’m not a child anymore.
…and I’m not quite ready to let that go.
I’m not scared of adult responsibilities or wanting to continue to be coddled at every moment of difficulty. This is not some narcissistic plea for the privileges and idealistic ignorance of childhood.
I’m a little bit scared of being an adult but I only recently realized that I’ll never feel like one.
The burden of the older generation is to pass on what has been learned in the hopes of a brighter future. But I don’t feel as if I have much to pass on. And the small concessions I can afford? I just don’t feel very qualified to provide.
Part of becoming an adult is realizing that you are winging it like everyone else.
There’s a comfort and a fear in that statement.
A comfort in the realization that you are worthy and qualified for the tasks that lie ahead.
And a fear that you’ll look back and wonder whatever happened to trap you in such a decaying body.
Oftentimes in my life, I’ve held resentment towards baby boomers and the elders that currently embody America. Where others see wisdom, I’ve seen foolishness. Where they claim prudence, I’ve seen hypocrisy. I’ve seen the religious and noble — with a straight face — adamantly defend their self-appointed bastion of hatred, bigotry, and infidelity.
I’m not the only one — the divide between the young and the old seems as strong as ever.
(Truthfully, I don’t know what’s to be done about it.)
All I know is this — I’m beginning to enter the years in adulthood that bridge the gap between the young and the old. And it is highly likely that — someday in the future — I’ll be sitting on my lawn, crying about the dangerous notions of the youth.
The youth are the future — they have always been the future. And it is my turn to slowly give up the bleeding edge and get down to the work of living. Before I know it, I will be the past.
Last year, I realized that the transition had already begun.
My perception of time has shifted. I used to see endless possibility. Now I see a nonrenewable resource — an asymptotic resource that I will never, ever have enough of.
Eventually, your funeral attendance outweighs your wedding attendance.
I wish it weren’t already true for me.
Some of the best motivational speeches ever given are based on the truth behind three simple words:
You are dying.
These words are just incidental thoughts on a never-ending line of growth and decay. I will come to regret most of this story — because I will have lived. That is the way it has been, and always will be.
And since there is no way to stop this, the best thing I can do is not to ruminate as much as I used to. Not to let the fear of aging rob me of any more time I have left.
Because for all of the good that introspection and pontificating have on society, there is nothing to discover in our morality. We are dying. That is that.
Any further thought is redundant.
And more motivation to live, is simply not needed.
I used to be a religious man — I used to think I had far more time than I currently feel that I do. And I will be damned (possibly literally) if I let another minute go by wasting my thoughts on something as uncontrollable as the human condition.
Regardless of your religious affiliation, I would hope you stop as well.
So I will end here — I will publish this piece and go back to work. I will live in the time that I am given, with the simple mantra of you are dying to pick me up when I am down.
That might sound depressing, but I am not depressed.
I am driven.
I will be positive, because truthfully I feel as if this realization is ultimately positive.
It’s forcing you to look at life on the terms on which it stands, not as you want it to be. To hopefully generate the life you hoped you would have.
My head will hold high, and I will go own with the business of living the best life I can manage. I will use my best judgement and continue as I always have — living without regret, and on the principles that make me who I am.
And after all of this, I will have the thought that growing old is getting old.
Because it truly is.
Addendum — I apologize for any existential dread I may have caused in this story. I’m not normally this esoteric. I stated earlier in this piece that I would come to regret most of what’s written here.
In the three days between drafting and editing, as it turns out, that’s already true.
But I won’t change it. Part of the difficulty in Medium is knowing when an author truly feels a certain way, or only feels the need to be authoritative on a subject in the moment.
In my opinion, it is oftentimes the latter.
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